What are some of the most difficult things to do on a large screen smartphone? Type long complicated messages. Even harder, if you have to switch between fields like in a calendar to make an appointment. How about sorting through pages of inaccurate Google search hits?

All of this done without extensive training on the user's part. Siri has made use of these features oh so useful and easy now. But, people are not used to it. But you know what happened at Apple? They tested the idea for month and months, in order to solve a severe cuatomer hassle, then when trying the old way of doing things, the end user benefit was clear. Rubin, Lee, Balmer, pick your favorite, are not designing user experiences. They are copying and adding some small feature differences.

Critical to all this is both recognition accuracy and understanding context. If you have not gone down this path, then you are going to be of the opinion it is a minor feature. Why, because rembering syntax (like programming) takes a lot of effort.

Anyone who doesn't consider Siri a game changer just has no clue. I have had severe finger pain from typing for over 15 years. Yesterday I composed a tax letter using Siri and e-mailed it to my desktop. I then copy and pasted that email into a word document and finished up my tax letter. Additionally I composed this blog post using Siri. I don't think I would've ever posted before the iPhone 4S.

Welcome.
Nice first post.
From my Siri to yours.

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

Siri is indeed cool, probably the best voice recognition system available for consumers today. But it's not like everyone else has been sitting still, nor that Apple is the only company that can ever do anything right.

"We want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us that's great, because we need all the help we can get, and if we screw up and we don't do a good job, it's not somebody else's fault, it's our fault. So I think that is a very important perspective."
- Steve Jobs

There is an interesting point I hadn't thought of until your post. Clippit/Clippy had a visual character, Hal 9000 had a giant red eye as its visual counterpart, and many other AI in sci-fi have had at least a semblance of human visual characteristics, but Siri has nothing but a microphone symbol. This strikes me as unusual for SW being marketed as AI and a personal assistance. It certainly has personality but I'd think that it would be natural to want to add a visage to make it feel more human like.

You're inconspicuously touching on Google's fundamental perspective on we ...mere mortals. Human beings linger on as perpetual beta releases of the ultimate Google coded paradigm. Had Siri been Google's entry into AI, a visage would appropriately infer a beta release, and a microphone ...the final and ultimate version of Google intelligent assistant.

As fate would have it, Apple has indeed gotten symbolism to harmonize with its procreating vision. Siri, as any gynecologist would suggest, is going to get a visage, whose ever, out of beta.

I see a lot of folks trying to say Siri isn't ready or Siri isn't much use. I think you're wrong. This really happened in my garage just moments after getting her phone setup:

Wife (a professional musician running late to a gig--as always): Asks me, "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Me: "Just ask your phone"
Wife to Siri: "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Siri shows map with push pin.
Wife touches push pin
Phone displays address of Blah House in Dallas
Wife punches address into GPS and screeches out of the driveway.

Folks, give it up. My musician wife is in love with the thing.

To be fair, a lot of the complaints are that much of the functionality of Siri is for US Customers only. This lack of support for markets such as the UK that were highlighted on the keynote along with Siri is highly disappointing and does a lot to dilute the appeal.

I'm sure things will improve as time moves on, but essentially it's a half baked product that is only really any use in the US at this moment in time, once it's out of beta I'm sure the enthusiasm for it will pick up.

I agree with most of it I suppose. Apple's purchase of Siri was a great decision. Especially the deep integration it has. I however would not use this in public, and would probably laugh / shake my head at anyone who does when I finally see it happen.

I would however use it to send a text to someone while driving.

A lot of these features have been available on Android for quite a while. As in, with a single button press, I can tell my phone to call anyone, to send a text message, or to start voice navigation.

Everything else that Siri has is usually just a glorified Google search.

I don't think you really saw what Siri is capable of doing androids voice actions is a gloried google search with the option to send a text message. Siri can do anything from work out a tip at dinner to look up some ones phone number and addres from your contacts in a second. And as for using it in public there is a mode where u can put it to your head like your making a call to interact with it. So it looks normal yet you get the speed benefit of siri without all the clicking

That is unless you stop loathing "clueless newbies" and actually start designing technology that is accessible to anyone without them having to worship at the alter of technology for the sake of the technology.

And by the way, that's the ultimate discipline. Apple is so good at it, they just make it look trivially easy. Don't think so? Show them up! Go on! If it's no big deal, you should be able to do it without copying their look and feel or patents - right?

/crickets

Yup - same old story.... Except Apple has the $$$ and in mobile devices the price advantage.

I don't think you really saw what Siri is capable of doing androids voice actions is a gloried google search with the option to send a text message. Siri can do anything from work out a tip at dinner to look up some ones phone number and addres from your contacts in a second. And as for using it in public there is a mode where u can put it to your head like your making a call to interact with it. So it looks normal yet you get the speed benefit of siri without all the clicking

I think a lot of people don't get it. And that's fine, not everyone can be an objective and perceptive, especially about technology. Most seem to jump from it's possible/it's not gonna happen to wanting something they saw/read in some sci-fi book.

I think a lot of people really didn't get the iPad when it came out. I certainly felt it wasn't going to be huge but I couldn't conceive a place for it in my digital lifestyle. The iPhone is the same thing. People complained that it didn't have a physical keyboard yet the fastest sinking smartphone makers is the only one who still pushes that design despite trying and failing many times to join the modern smartphone world with full touchscreen I/O.

The part that gets me is the odd option of not looking at the entire service offered by a new tech, but pulling one, often mundane and simple, task it can accomplish and saying that some other tech had that so it's just playing catch up and it's not anything new or exciting.

Siri is huge! Windows, Google, and even Amazon are working quickly to get their own services in place. This will make our digital lifestyle better in the long run and we'll look back in a few years and wonder how we ever lived without it.

This is electricity in the home. This is the light bulb This is the automobile This is the telephone This is the airplane. This is the George Forman grill. Simple at its onset it will grow fast and in ways we can't predict over a very short span of our lives.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Your phone is a tool for communicating. You shouldnt be communicating with the phone; you should be communicating with somebody on the other side of the phone, he added.

What a retarded comment.

Isn't this EXACTLY what a smart phone is all about? It's a PDA (Personal Digital ASSISTANT) and a phone. We don't all have human assistants on the other side of the phone, Rubin. Having the ability to interact with the device via voice is a killer app.

There's no doubt in my mind that Siri is a game changer. I already used voice dialing extensively in iPhone 4, and Siri extensively builds on that whole experience. It's so much faster and more convenient and flat out cooler than digging into Calendar to make an appointment. I can send three or four text messages as I walk between offices without fumbling with a keyboard. Just. Plain. Cool.

And think about it: Siri is a prime candidate to integrate into OS X as well. I already use Siri to manage meetings via voice while I continue to type on my MBP, so why not offer voice control there as well?

I think Rubin and Lees are just trashing Apple, because it purchased for $200 million what they would have paid $4 billion for. ;-)

And as proof of their hypocrisy, watch them come out with Siri-like functionality in their next releases.

What were they gonna say? "We're way behind in the ballgame..."? Yeah, right! No matter what technology that comes out on the iPhone or iPad that gets a lot of media attention, Google and Microsoft are gonna downplay it. Yeah, Siri is something that would come in handy while driving a car, and most will only use it sparingly after the initial fun they have. However, it is useful technology that's a step ahead of previous tech of the same nature. I had the old Siri app on my iPhone, and I occassionally used it. I'm sure when I upgrade to the iPhone 5, and get Siri on that phone, I'll use it just as much.

I see a lot of folks trying to say Siri isn't ready or Siri isn't much use. I think you're wrong. This really happened in my garage just moments after getting her phone setup:

Wife (a professional musician running late to a gig--as always): Asks me, "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Me: "Just ask your phone"
Wife to Siri: "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Siri shows map with push pin.
Wife touches push pin
Phone displays address of Blah House in Dallas
Wife punches address into GPS and screeches out of the driveway.

Folks, give it up. My musician wife is in love with the thing.

Well...

Anecdotes like that have no value at all!

...You just wanted it to work!

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

I agree with most of it I suppose. Apple's purchase of Siri was a great decision. Especially the deep integration it has. I however would not use this in public, and would probably laugh / shake my head at anyone who does when I finally see it happen.

I would however use it to send a text to someone while driving.

A lot of these features have been available on Android for quite a while. As in, with a single button press, I can tell my phone to call anyone, to send a text message, or to start voice navigation.

Everything else that Siri has is usually just a glorified Google search.

Yes this is true. It's particularly great with Google Navigation. Now, prepared to be crucified here.

"Overpopulation and climate change are serious shit." Gilsch"I was really curious how they had managed such fine granularity of alienation." addabox

I think a lot of people don't get it... Siri is huge! ... This is electricity in the home. This is the light bulb This is the automobile This is the telephone This is the airplane. This is the George Forman grill. Simple at its onset it will grow fast and in ways we can't predict over a very short span of our lives.

So huge it will eventually be the main interaction we will have with all the computers and gadgets in our lives.

Think back to the befuddlement Scotty of Star Trek fame had when encountering a mouse as input device for the first time. Voice control and command is the way forward and in a few years time we will regard the mouse and GUI as the horse and buggy stage of computer development.

Buying Apple products has always been like buying products from the Future today. Siri will extend that future at a very rapid pace.

Siri isn't nearly as intelligent as many of you think it is. It's certainly very well trained, if you follow the rails. Hey, try asking it "Do I need my jacket today?". I heard that works great.

The only difference between Google's voice commands/voice control and Siri is the attempted AI, which was actually from an old DARPA project that had its funding cut because it wasn't close to being good enough for military use. And I say attempted. How the AI is implemented is just a much more complex version of voice commands. It does speech to text then tries to use a bunch of predefined rules to break down the sentence and associate it with pre-existing commands, weighting each outcome with a probability. The problem is this does require training. Lots of it. Which is why the Siri team is supposedly so large.

But the other implication of this is simple: Siri will only be able to do what it was programmed to do. This is why Siri is pretty much braindead in Canada and Europe. It's only been trained extensively for the US.

On Android you can already say "Text Joe, I am going to be late. Sorry bud. Send." and it'll send. With Siri, you can now say "Hello Siri. How are you? Please text Joe that I will be late. Sorry bud."

Yeah, it's cool in demos and when you get your shiny new toy. But what's the longevity on that? Unless you like the sound of your own voice, you're going to learn to optimize Siri to do what you want quickly. And do you know what that will sound like?

"Text Joe, I am going to be late. Sorry bud. Send."

Whats the point of your posts? You're pathetic. You've used 'shiny new toy' quite a few times already, a sign of a troll. If you think there's no 'longevity' you're incredibly short sighted. No, Siri isn't perfect. Of course it isn't. But when the hell WILL voice recognition be perfect? People have been trying to get it right for the last 30 years. It will never be perfect. But, all impressions conclude this is by far the best implementation yet. You think Apple will stop work on Siri? They'll continue to improve it everyday. 6 months from now, it will be significantly better. A year from now, more so. You have to start somewhere. In terms of voice recognition, Siri is near perfect if you dont have a thick accent. In terms of interpreting your message, doing what you want it to do, and connecting to enough data sources, yes theres massive room for improvement. You think APple isn't aware of this? But its an incredibly good start, which is the impressions of everyone who has used it. The fact that you believe its nothing more than a flash in the pan shows what a limited imagination you have.

Thanks. That's partially true. I'll get fewer calls after the screeching out of the drive way asking me to look something up on maps.

But, on a more serious observation: English is not my wife's native tongue. She was afraid Siri wouldn't understand her. Siri has been 100% dead on every time she talks to it. Wow. Even I can't do that...

Thanks. That's partially true. I'll get fewer calls after the screeching out of the drive way asking me to look something up on maps.

But, on a more serious observation: English is not my wife's native tongue. She was afraid Siri wouldn't understand her. Siri has been 100% dead on every time she talks to it. Wow. Even I can't do that...

... I suspect that your wife is just pretending to not understand you.

Yes-Siri learns your voice and adapts your pronunciation,

My daughter's family has a last name starting with "Gi" as in "Gilbert".

Initially, Siri would find the correct name, but mispronounce it as "Ji" as in "Jimmy".

After a day, Siri picked up on how I was pronouncing it and changed hers.

Siri (at least on an iDevice) is meant to be a Personal Assistant.

Sigh... Guess I'll have to pop for 4 more 4S'.

Siri calls me "Grandpa Wonderful"... the grandkids -- not so much!

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

These same companies have been mocking Apple for having crappy voice features in the iPhone until this point, touting their own as superior. So yes, I'd expect nothing less from them now than 'who cares about voice'?

Um, if I remember correctly, Siri uses the same voice recognition software: Nuance. In fact, Siri isn't voice recognition; it's a contextual AI that utilizes speech recognition software (it can be upgraded to a superior solution in the future).

Also, in my experience, even in noisy environments, Siri is about as accurate as the iPhone's keyboard.

Amazing. People slam Siri because it is still a learning process (beta) and because it isn't perfect. Get a clue folks. People (babies in particular) are a learning process. Maybe we should toss them out. And, as for not being perfect, in case you haven't noticed, people don't do a particularly good job of communicating with each other. Perhaps we should junk people, too, until they are perfect.

I agree with most of it I suppose. Apple's purchase of Siri was a great decision. Especially the deep integration it has. I however would not use this in public, and would probably laugh / shake my head at anyone who does when I finally see it happen.

I would however use it to send a text to someone while driving.

A lot of these features have been available on Android for quite a while. As in, with a single button press, I can tell my phone to call anyone, to send a text message, or to start voice navigation.

Everything else that Siri has is usually just a glorified Google search.

Perhaps, but what everyone seems to be missing here, is the advancement of the VOICE RECOGNITION. The very fact that you can speak naturally or even whimsically and the phone gets it, THAT'S what's impressive here. I've been able to do many of these things with iOS before as well, but I had to think for a minute about how I needed to phrase my request. What Apple has done is to bring the technology to the people, not the people to the technology. It's the difference between real handwriting recognition and Graffiti (Palm's old sawed-off handwriting system) which forced people to learn a new way of writing so that the device would understand.

I think it's the best implementation of voice yet, but for me it has two fundamental flaws.

1. People look like tools when using it. Driving yes, someone dictating a letter in Starbucks - no. They will come across as a tube, like one of the parodies of early yuppies shouting down their mobile phones, full of self-importance. I often gripe about people blasting music from their phone on a bus or train - it's a lack of consideration for the fact they are in a public space - I really don't see this as any different.

2. It's not local, so if you're out of the country it's not worth shit. OK in the U.S., but it's like Google Navigation here in Europe - no good once you cross a border. It's one of the reasons why Ovi Maps/Nokia are popular here - locally stored content. Google appear to have figured this out with ICS, their TTS is done on the phone with no data connection, and recently with their maps you can already store your route locally before taking off, if you deviate then it checks the data again. I expect them to increase that feature to entire maps this year.

Siri is indeed cool, probably the best voice recognition system available for consumers today. But it's not like everyone else has been sitting still, nor that Apple is the only company that can ever do anything right.

Actually, given the comments from Microsoft and Google, it's entirely possible that they might be. Neither of them things voice recognition has much value, so why spend money on it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ConradJoe

You have no basis whatsoever for the statement that "many of the people who call Apple computers 'toys' are using their PC mainly to play games".

Sure I do. Search this forum for thousands of posts from PC people arguing that their PC was so superior to the Mac because the Mac didn't have a native version of Doom/warfare/shootemup of the month.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alandail

Google doesn't like Siri because the results don't include any ads.

There's probably a lot of truth to that. Google only invests in things that might improve their ad revenue. Although I'm sure they'll find a way around that problem - like emailing your ads to you after you make a voice search request.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

Perhaps, but what everyone seems to be missing here, is the advancement of the VOICE RECOGNITION. The very fact that you can speak naturally or even whimsically and the phone gets it, THAT'S what's impressive here. I've been able to do many of these things with iOS before as well, but I had to think for a minute about how I needed to phrase my request. What Apple has done is to bring the technology to the people, not the people to the technology. It's the difference between real handwriting recognition and Graffiti (Palm's old sawed-off handwriting system) which forced people to learn a new way of writing so that the device would understand.

Add to that -- by the end of this year over 25 million people will be "beta testing" Siri and providing data to Apple's servers.

These data can be analyzed in depth to determine what Nuance (Speech To Text) and Siri (AI -Conversational Context Analysis) does well and where it needs improvement...

25 million people advancing the state of the art in voice recognition...

...we should call this knowledge mining!

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -